The Boring Life of a Newsie
by Austra
Summary: Newsie. We think romance, hot guys living on the streets, and rescuing people  usually teenage girls with horrible backgrounds  and defending their territory! Meet someone who'll make you rethink all that. Meet Panther. As boring a newsie as you can get.
1. Chapter 1

**My excuse/explanation for writing this:**

All right, so everyone's always writing stories about the newsies and they're always putting girls in there and the girls always have desperate backgrounds (drunk brother, rapist father, dead or abusive mother) and they always find the perfect newsie to protect them (usually Spot) and then they do all kinds of stuff, and usually people want it to keep going, so they write a sequel where the father/creepy-guy/mom/brother, etc. comes back and wants to kill them and stuff, and then the newsy they happened to fall in love with (usually Spot) takes care of that and da da da.

Or alternatively, there's a newsie (usually a girl) who's got an awful background and that's why they become a newsie, and then they fall in love with a newsie, ususally after having been dressed up in boy clothes to protect her from being found out (seriously, what's so bad about being a girl?).

Or else we have the cliche where Spot is fighting to protect his territory and then he meets this girl and then finds out the guy that he's fighting with is actually the girl's crazy rapist and then he goes and soaks the dude, (usually kills him), kisses the girl, and marries her.

And then there's always the awful old cliche where the girl comes from a horrible background (usually a crazed rapist, abusive father, and drunk mother) and she goes to Brooklyn (because _of course_ that's the _only_ alternative!) and then she dresses up as a boy, beats Spot up, he's amazed, she becomes a newsie, she saves his life, he finds out she's a girl, and they live happily ever after but then there's usually a sequel, because the author just loved the characters too much to leave them alone with their happily-ever-after and so the author brings back the rapist father or whatever and then Spot has to finish him off.

So I thought, "What if I wrote a story about what a REAL newsie's life would be like?"

And here you are.


	2. Chapter 2

February 14, 1899

Well heer I am, riting in this stupid jernel. I won't have anything intresting to rite in it, but I may as well, seeing as it's so nice for finding it in a gutter. Today was a bad day. I only sold ten papes.

Big joke. This morning sumone rote me a valentine. I think in was Toughie. She's a marvel... the only girl newsie I no of, and she's just about as tuff and as funny as you can get.

I gess it was her becus there aren't any other girls.

I better tell sum about miself. I am about five feet four inches. I am skinnier than anywun I know, and can sneek through, around, under, or between anywun or anything without getting cot [**caught]**. That's why my name is Panther. My reel name is boring. It's Timothy. I'm seventeen (but I'll be eighteen in July). Most kids stop selling wen they're that old. Twenty is the oldest I've ever seen. At that age they ushully start another job.

I live in one of the newsies homes with about twenty uther kids. Only wun girl. So far as I know, the only girl newsie in all of Manhattan. Also the toughest newsie of any I know, boy or girl. That's why she's called Toughie.

Being a newsie is hard. You're hungry most of the time, and wen you aren't, it's ushally becuz you stol sum food.

The peepol hoo sell the papes cheet us, but we can't complan [**complain]** or reebel. We are all "one gang for itself"; there's no yunyun. [**Union]**

March 1

I haven't ben able to rite in a wile becus I've ben very bizy. Today I got ataked [**attacked]** in the street. Racer and his gang agin. It's every gang for itself on thees streets. I have to find one. Those hoo don't have one don't survive.

March 5

Found me a gang. Just four of us: Toughie, hoo is leeder even though she's a girl, and me, and then two uther guys: Grin and Lefty.

Now I'll have protecshun. We sell together- ecsept Toughie. She likes to be on her own. But somehow she can always tell when we're in truble and cum running.

March 12

Grin got beet up pretty bad. Sum meen newsies tell him they'll call him Scars insted. I told him I'd soak them if they did. He sed I was a good kid.

May 25

I haven't written cuz I ben reel bizy. I mite just give this jernel up. Nuthing ever happens to me anyway.

May 26

Must hurry. May die. Toughie kidnaped. Mor later.


	3. Chapter 3

May 27

So relieved. Toughie is safe. It was Tooth's gang agen. [again]

Toughie sez she didn't need us. I don't beleeve her. Wut's a gang for if not to protect wun another?

June 1

Ben having good selling days. Good hedlines and all.

June 5

Trubol brewing. I see a strik cuming. Like the wun we had last yeer. We half-wun then: now we'll half-win this time: and all the half-wins will make us lose.

I'm sick of it all. I just wanna liv- all the strik stuff don't seem to get us nowhere.

June 7

I wuz rite. We're on strik. I don't want to be; I just wanna sell me papes an' liv, like I sed. Sum kid named Jack is leeding the strik. He's a good kid, but dreemy, ya no? [know]

Wut's this strik gonna get us, huh? We'll just half-win; and half-win agen; and all thees half-wins will mak us lose. Like I sed. Oh well. Toughie's relly into this strik thing. I strongly suspect it's cuz of a sertin Spot Conlon. Oh well. I _did_ lik her... I gess this Spot guy is pretty good, if he can mak sumwun lik Toughie fall for him- Toughie is not ever interested in guys. Until now.

Oh well. Maybe she'll cum to her senses and I kin ask her if I can cort [court] her.

But she's Spot's rite now.


	4. Chapter 4

July 12

Its ben a long time since I rote but I've ben bisy. The strik wuz relly gud but it was bisy. Jack Kelly had mor to him then I thot. Guss wut? Spot is achilly going to mary Toughie! Evrywun is shoked. I think Toughie is shoked to. The weding wil be in Octobr. I think seventeen is to yung to git mareed, don't you?

July 13

My lif has takn a turn for the bettr. I met this dol named Sherfire - she's the leedur of a gang in Queens. Beleeve it or nt, I think I like her. She's a lot like Toughie.

July 14

Things seem to be luking up. I deecided I wuz to old to be a newsie no mor so I went to get me a job. An' now I'm going be a photographer! They say it's gittin to be a big thing. But I need to lern to rite bettr befor I start werking.


End file.
